DIY Blog

Downtown Bellevue, Washington all lit up for the Snowflake Lane Parade. Photo by Cecilia Kennedy

Escaping unnecessarily invasive space aliens was high on my list of goals for 2018 and I’m happy to report that I prevailed. Whew! Here’s to prudent goal setting! Cheers!

However, I know that I must up my game because “playing it safe” is kind of boring. Every year I put the same thing on my list: “Avoid intrusive space alien encounters” and it works out and everything, but I’ve heard that goals should be measurable and laid out in specific time frames. There’s nothing more vague or general than the goal mentioned above. The outside reader might ask, “Yes, but for how long will you avoid this problem and how will you measure your success?” I get it. I absolutely get it. So, as a responsible (and only) member of the “Fixin’ Leaks and Leeks Team,” here are some more specific and measurable goals:

Goal 1: Go to Hawaii. Time Frame: This year. How this goal will be measured: Coconut drinks.

Goal 2: Audition for, and hopefully get, the role of a Snowflake Lane Dancer in Bellevue, Washington for the 2019 holiday season. I realize that on this blog, I often “threaten” to become a dancer in parades and embarrass the heck out of Nate and Alex, but this time, I really think I can do it. I plan on taking some private lessons from a woman in the neighborhood who can actually dance and choreograph professional numbers. Then, if my feet don’t hurt too much, I’ll audition in September. When I read the casting call it seemed to me that the choreographers are looking for dancers who are “16 and older” and who can “smile a lot.” I more than qualify. However, if my dancing isn’t up to par, but I seem spunky enough, they might choose me to be a penguin or a reindeer and I’ve reached an age where you can’t slap a costume on me, send me out in the dark at a place loaded with bars and restaurants, and still expect me to find my way out onto the parade route. I have limited night vision and I’m pretty sure if someone sees a stray festive penguin, free drinks are in order, so no. The choreographers would be better off just NOT making me a costumed character as a consolation prize. That’s how people get hurt and penguins get hangovers. Time Frame: June-December 24th. How this goal will be measured: How much writing I actually get done if I’m too busy dancing my sleigh bells off.

Goal 3: Change the focus of my business. Paper/Rock Writing Company did very well at the beginning of this year, but my other part-time job promoted me to “lead tutor,” so now I mentor and train writing tutors—and I love it. However, if I’m spending my day training tutors and helping students with their academic writing, I’d like to do something different with my evenings. So, I think I’d like to focus on reading and editing manuscripts/memoirs for authors. Time Frame: Starting Now. How this goal will be measured: Actual money.

Goal 4: See an orca. Every year, in addition to avoiding highly intrusive space aliens, I wish on moonbeams and stardust that I’ll find just that one lone orca that desperately needs to be seen by me. It never happens, but I’m still hopeful. Time Frame: Hurry up, already! How this goal will be measured: I’ll have photographic evidence. The orca will be the one in the photo that looks like an orca and I’ll be the one attempting to hug it.

Goal 5: Maintain my container garden. Time Frame: I started one in July and I’ve maintained it! I’ve actually maintained it! It’s not dead!! So, this is an ongoing project, which may require a bigger container. How this goal will be measured: The size of the next container.

Goal 6: Get a hot tub. Time Frame: Maybe this year? There may be money in the budget for one this year? How this goal will be measured: Google Earth will have to update its picture of the Kennedy house/property in order to accurately display a tasteful, yet ginormous hot tub that maybe I could swim in. And it should have fountains and slides too. But it should cost no more than a regular hot tub.

So, yes, if I can accomplish the goals above, I’ll safely dance, soak, and sail my way past the menacing tentacles of the new year.

In Other News: I’m ending the year with another publication in the horror genre: “Stella’s Shoes,” (pages 76-78) which was accepted for publication in Siren’s Call eZine.

Your Turn: Do you like to set goals? When is your favorite time of the year to set them?

34 thoughts on “Upping the Goal-Setting Game for 2019: I Will Dance in a Parade!”

Congratulations on the new publication! I enjoyed reading your story and especially appreciated the atmosphere you set in Stella’s surroundings. As for goals, I plan to renew my determination to exercise each day and will start noting that on my calendar. It’s gotten too easy to skip a day here and there and kind of “ignore” it. My other goal is to step up submissions of my writing and hopefully get more things published this year! Have a great 2019!

You have many resolutions. I like the one about Hawaii!!My husband was stationed there for a long time before we met. I was in the Navy and wanted so much to be stationed in Hawaii but I ended up in Earle, New Jersey! I take goals one at a time and try to make them ones which I can accomplish, sometimes only 2 this year and then I am going to keep a jar about things I did accomplish, kind of like good days vs. bad days. Congrats on lead tutor!

Wow, a you’ve got a lot to celebrate, and excellent planning for the future. Keeping the container garden alive is monumental, I’m envious, since I inherited a toxic gardening curse from my mom (known as the Black Thumb of Doom, before they chased her family out of the once-lush Sahara). And if you tire of the hot tub, it’s perfect for an even bigger container garden. Good luck with the dancing/penguin thing, and I love “unnecessarily invasive space aliens,” that’s made me laugh three times already.

You have upped your resolution list ! Nate & Alex should get penguin suits also, you can all waddle together! A hot tub to swim laps in eh? how many to a mile? Hawaii has nice Happy hours so extra waddling in your penguin suit so you can enjoy those rum drinks. 🙂
I believe resolutions can happen anytime (even if they don’t) and for me my time for fresh starts has historically been the fall (October). This is also my birthday month and I don’t know why but jobs and hobbies generally all begin in October. Shouldn’t new beginnings coincide with your birthday?
Aloha

About the Author

Hammering and sifting her way through DIY projects, Cecilia Kennedy shares newly-learned skills. Earning her doctorate in literature exposed her to many “useful” DIY manuals from the Middle Ages, which taught audiences to jelly eels and apply leaches to cure illnesses. For more modern projects, she relies on articles and local experts; her husband Nathan, an accountant who has also done construction work; her teenage son Alex; and SeaTac the “action cat,” who can’t resist a project. Cecilia and her family live in the Greater Seattle area.